“The sea runs thru my veins”

By Zara Zandieh

THE SEA RUNS THRU MY VEINS features four protagonists who, based on their very own individual challenges and life circumstances, share different perspectives on the topic of happiness. Sabuha Salam, long-term host of the monthly party Gayhâne, fled from Ruhr Area to Berlin in the late 1990s to live their queer identity freely. Llanquiray Valioska Painemal Morales, Mapuche with a Chilean passport and an experienced activist for the rights of refugees, migrants and indigenous people, went to the former Soviet Union before she came to Berlin in the 1990s. Neomi Ilan, a long-standing queer-feminist activist and cancer survivor from Israel/ Palestine, has been living through a lot of changes since her severe illness three years ago. Amir Zandieh, an electrician whose home is in Berlin since the 1970s, started to grapple with philosophical questions after the failed revolution in Iran.